Disorientation

This week I went to orientation for my third year of medical school. Never fear, this does not mean finishing my dissertation is imminent, but it's on the horizon.

First we learned how to access the online radiology system (not supported by Vista, sucker). The women giving the demonstration walked us through it, from finding the link on the intranet to working with the timeline of the patient's medical history. She finished by asking for questions. The first one that came up was, "how do you find the link on the intranet?" Ah med students, how I have missed you.

Soon we got a goodie bag full of sharp medical tools and a stern lecture about not cutting ourselves or others with haphazardly disposed-of sharp things. To practice, we uncapped and unscrewed and peeled open one sharp thing after another. I can now call myself proficient at not harming myself with a scalpel.

In the morning we had to fill out a bunch of forms. I promptly incorrectly filled out the one to check if I'm on the child abuse registry (answer: not to my knowledge) and had to slink up front to get another one.

At one point all the outsiders like myself who will be joining the current second year class had to stand up for easy application of scarlet letters. I didn't notice for quite some time that everyone else was already sitting again, so hey! I really want you all to know who I am.

All in all it was a sort of surreal experience for me because I kept thinking about how my original medical school class had been in the same place three years earlier. Then I walked out into the hallway and there was their class graduation picture looking down at me and it felt like I had traveled through time. And then it was back to my office to keep slogging away at collecting data so I can graduate too. Eventually.